Free The Wizard by Gene Wolfe Page A

when it heals, but one must expect scars on a bold knight. Blue eyes . . ." She sighed. "He has a cleft chin. Did you notice, Squire?" Toug managed to say, "Yes, My Lady." "My praise is not to be repeated. You realize that, I'm sure. Both of you." Mani said, "Most certainly not. Your Ladyship may rely on me absolutely." To which Toug added, "Me, too." "I've had Mani's opinion of Sir Svon already. If you want to hear it, no doubt you will. You may hear it even if you don't want to. But I'd like to have yours. I realize you've been his squire for only one day."
    When Toug did not speak, Idnn added, "You must've formed some estimate of his character just the same." "I knew him before." "So you did. I won't tattle, on a maiden's honor." "And I," Mani announced, "speak to you and Lady Idnn alone. And to Sir Able, but he isn't here." "A lot's what Sir Able told me," Toug said, "but he's right. I know he's right." "About Sir Svon?" Idnn was clearly interested. "Better and better. What did he say?" "Well, he's proud. Sir Svon, I mean." "Anyone with half an eye can see that." "He ought to be a nobleman, but he's a younger son, and then his mother died and his father married again. They're just trying to get him out of the way, really. He looks down on everybody, even the king, because he feels like everybody looks down on him, and he's got to learnthis's what Sir Able said when we talked one time." "I understand. Go on." "He's got to learn it's not all looking up or looking down. He said people keep hurting Svon because they think he needs his pride humbled. He said he'd done that, too. But Sir Svon's been hurt so much already that it only makes him worse and I shouldn't do it anymore." "Have you humbled him, Squire?" Toug looked around him, at the frigid northland night and the distant lights of the camp. It was time for a good solid lie, he knew, and he lied manfully. "I said something, My Lady. Only I took it back, after. I don't think he's forgotten; but I don't think he's mad anymore, either."
    CHAPTER SIX UTGARD!
    The wall and towers of Utgard could be seen for a full day's ride before they reached them, and neither was as Toug had expected. The base of the wall was a range of mountains, or at least seemed so, low mountains but steep. From it rose a second wall of fitted stones, in which the stones were larger than cottages. Atop that rose a palisade of trunks so great as to make the stones look small. The towers beyond the wall were blue with distanceand immense, so wide they seemed squat, and often topped by spidery scaffolding, half walled. The men on them looked as small as ants; but when Laemphalt had trotted another league, Toug realized they were not human beings but giants. "No wonder our king wants to make friends with them," he told Laemphalt. "We could never beat them, not in a thousand years, or even stop them from doing anything." Svon turned in his saddle. "If you can't talk like a man, be quiet." Toug nodded. "I'm sorry, Sir Svon. It slipped out." "I killed one of those creatures a few days ago, and I'd like to make it a score." At the head of their column, Master Crol sounded a trumpet and shouted, "We come in peace!" Privately, Toug hoped they would be received the same way. The plain on which they had heard so many mysterious sounds and seen ghostly figures at dawn was given over to farms here, for the most part; and poor farms they seemed to Toug, although his father's fields had been scarcely fertile enough to feed his family. There were giants in these fields; but the reapers were human slaves, and mostly women. "Look at that fellow." Svon pointed. "He doesn't know what he's about." Toug touched his heels to Laemphalt until he and Svon rode side by side. "He's blind, Sir Svon." "He is? How can you tell from here?" "He's a man. See his beard?" "Of course. What does that have to do with it?" "The giants blind their men slaves," Toug explained. "Berthold told me. Didn't you see him?" "Yes, and he was blind. But